I drive around in circles. I lose my keys. I write things down. I live by my appointment book. I forget where my car is parked. I can’t spell. I think about all the missing information.
I have a desire to remember things from my past which are slowly fading.
I recreate memories. I film the recreations.My practice incorporates video as a tool to access and preserve memories. It is a process based investigation of the psychology behind remembering; an exploration in the notion of “truth”. Since subconscious idealization of memories is inherent, fantasy worlds evolve, forming hybrid embellishments that are a mix of myth and reality. I attempt to contact people from my recent or distant past to recreate fading memories; to fill in the gaps. In doing so, each memory I examine, through recreation and reinterpretation, transforms into a new experience to be archived… the creation of a new memory. As the videos repeat randomly, viewers experience them in a haphazard fashion akin to déjà vu. They become mnemonic devices for me, while imprinting images into the viewer’s minds and potentially triggering latent memories.
I first visited Argentina just over three years ago, and while I remember some moments as if they occurred yesterday, others exist solely through photographs or anecdotes. The impetus for this residency was simple; return to Argentina and recreate moments from my trip. What was not so simple was the process involved in doing so, as many of the recreations entailed working with other people. The collaborative and improvisational elements of these projects, as well as practical issues such as difference in language and culture, presented an array of complications. Conversely, it is these very complications that lend weight to my projects; the process becomes, after all, the seed of a new memory. While the ephemeral nature of memory provides a subject matter for my work, it is the physical, tangible process of recreating that truly inspires and motivates my practice.
“Throughout our life, we reorganize our memories and ideas of the past, conserving more or less the same material, but adding other elements capable of changing its significance and, above all, changing our viewpoint.” –Jean Piaget [from Memory and Intelligence, 1973]
